Moodle books

Comments

• Tim Hunt - Mon, 9 Feb 2009, 10:14 AM

  This book aims to help teachers who have never used Moodle before, to start getting some of there teaching material online; and then to enhance them using multimedia; and then, perhaps, to start using more of Moodle's activities.
  
  I think Ian Wild does this very well. The book is well written and well paced. They style is engaging, and the range and order of Moodle features covered is well thought out. Ian shows, by examples taken from one of his courses, why and how you might want to use the features in your course.
  
  There are some things I would quibble with. For example Ian insists on opening all links in new windows, which is just wrong (it's Number 9 in this list of web usability mistakes, or, indeed, numbers 1 and 2 in this list from 1999). However, these do little to detract from the book's goals. Altogether, I think that this is a very useful addition to the library of Moodle books.
  
  I should note that I am a developer, and therefore nowhere near the book's target audience. I would like to read opinions from the people the book is aimed at.
  
• Ian Wild - Tue, 10 Feb 2009, 6:42 AM

  Hi Tim,
  
  Thanks for your comments and I'm glad you like the book. I do need to pick you up on your issue with opening pages in new windows. You're right: I do insist , and here's why...
  
  Here in the UK, if I had £5 every time one of my students or the teachers/trainers I work with complain "my Moodle has disappeared" every time they opened up a document/presentation/spreadsheet that the browser had (thanks to OLE) opened up within the browser window then frankly I could have retired to my own private island a long time ago. More often than not I see the same problem with Moodle web pages. Also, we have found that having the banner and navigation bar across the top of the page takes up too much space (schools in the UK seem to be stuck with 17 inch monitors).
  
  Normally I would accept opening new web pages is possibly a bad idea but in the context of Moodle (which I appreciate is simply a set of web pages) we aren't dealing with users who are treating the experience as a "browsing" experience - i.e. I would assert they are using the Internet in a very different way (which, let's face it, they are).
  
  As an aside: of course, the effect of opening a new window can be mitigated, e.g. including in the link the words "Opens in new window", or similar - which is (I think) what I do in the book.
  
  Hope this clarifies things and thanks again,
  
  Ian.
  

• Nathan Hutchings - Wed, 4 Mar 2009, 7:34 PM

  Hi Ian
  
  I have been developing Moodle sites for students from year 5 to the final year of high school for the last three years and I very much agree with you about opening in a new window.
  
  Regards
  Nathah Hutchings
  
  
• Mary Cooch - Wed, 11 Mar 2009, 6:43 AM

  Ian - and Nathan - have to say I agree with you both about opening in new windows. I have a book out myself soon and I say exactly the same as Ian (from 20 years experience as a high school teacher and latterly VLE trainer) so I daresay Tim will disagree with me too
• Jamie Thompson - Fri, 17 Apr 2009, 7:34 PM

  This looks like the perfect book for a lot of schools, and I look forward to getting hold of it. Pretty much all of the teaching staff at my school have electronic resources that just need moodle-ising! I look forward to seeing how this book can help us kick-start that process.
  
  And Tim, sorry to gang up on you, but I think those lists were compiled back in the days before tabbed browsing was commonplace. The person who wrote the first of those lists says "user-hostile message implied in taking over the user's machine" - I would argue that commandeering a Moodle course window with supplementary content is actually more user-hostile, and feels more like being taken over than having an extra window open up.
  However, you got in first, and I haven't even read this book yet!
• Angela van Son - Sat, 18 Apr 2009, 6:36 PM

  The book was a good help for me. Even though I had already started using Moodle and learned a lot by browsing the internet, the book offered new insights. It was practical, the screenshots are very useful.
  
  Even though I bought Moodle 1.9 at the same time, I still learned new stuff.
  
  I am not too keen on the 'what just happened' parts. I'm not an idiot, but they suggest that I might be... (no offence meant)
  
• Ian Wild - Tue, 21 Apr 2009, 6:09 PM

  Hi all,
  
  Just catching up with the comments on here and I'm glad everyone is finding the book (and the comments here, too) helpful.
  
  Angela: I'll forward on your thoughts regarding the 'What Just Happened' sections to Packt. Originally we were thinking that they would be good for promoting reflection/reinforcing ideas covered in previous sections but perhaps we have made the content too patronising ? It's definitely something we'll think about for the next edition.
  
  Thanks again and cheers everyone,
  
  Ian.